CONTACT:
Gary and Vicki Wallace, Bayleys, ph 309 6020, Gary 027 4988 585, Vicki 021 988 585.
FEATURES:
Elegant and new Remuera home with five generous bedrooms, formal and informal living areas - including media room - and three separate landscaped outdoor areas, including a back lawn and a patio with heated pool.
It's not hard to figure out that a family man was behind the creation of 29 Arney Rd. A man with four children, no less. A man who's built or renovated numerous houses and has found out from experience what works.
You can see it in the size of theplace. The interior floor space adds up to an eighth of an acre, divided into three floors.
You can see it in the layout. The family room, kitchen and informal dining area are nestled down one end of the house. If guests arrive unexpectedly, you can shut the doors to the chaos and retreat to catch up in the serenity of the large formal lounge and dining rooms.
If you like, you can even banish the kids downstairs to the (soundproofed) media room, which opens out on to a flat, private backyard. Your guests could come and go without realising you even had kids.
You can see it in the choice of living spaces. Depending on the time of day, the weather and the kids' demands, you can choose to spend a lazy morning on the terrace as the children swim in the heated pool, make dinner in the large up-to-the-minute kitchen while one child is doing homework at the informal dining table and another is watching television in the family room, have a sunset drink on the northwest-facing patio, or curl up with a movie in the home theatre room.
You can see it in the size of the bedrooms. The master suite on the top floor is enormous, with an impressive dressing room and en suite (with bath), and a balcony that takes in views of the valley and Mt Hobson.
Three other double bedrooms are on this floor. One has an en suite and the others share the family bathroom and a study alcove. The fifth bedroom, downstairs, which has a bathroom next door and looks out across the lawn, was designed with an au pair in mind.
"I wanted to create an elegant but workable family home," says Alan. "One that was liveable and good for entertaining."
This house is the piece de resistance of a process that started several years ago. Alan, who lives next door, worked with architect Robin O'Donnell to reconfigure four neighbouring properties, including his own, so they maximised the potential of their sites without encroaching on each other's space or privacy. Number 29 used to be a tennis court, so it was an ideal flat patch of land on which to build a family home.
O'Donnell and Alan worked together to bring a modern - but not stark - interpretation to the classic Remuera house. They also wanted a home that would sit comfortably on the site, and would work well with the weather.
So they ended up wrapping much of the home in floor-to-ceiling windows and sliding glass doors. The family room, with its sliding doors and windows and soaring skylights, is designed to open up on a still summer's day into an outdoor room, from which it's a hop, skip and dive into the pool.
"I knew it would be good, but it's turned out even better than I'd hoped," says Alan of the house.
He admits that after building what he considers the ultimate family home, he's tempted to move in. But with only one child still at home, he figures someone else will appreciate it more.
